Duck-carvers, wildlife painters and animal enthusiasts will gather this weekend for the 40th annual California Open. The two-day festival showcases the work of as many as 150 artists and fish and duck decoy carvers from the U.S. and abroad. There will be a carving competition (wildfowl, fish and birds), an exhibit of antique decoys, a palm frond-carving contest, live auctions, art exhibits and vendor booths. This year’s featured artist is Dehesa resident Gloria Chadwick, a retired psychiatric nurse who enjoys painting and sketching wildlife at the San Diego Zoo. From 1 to 3 p.m. Sunday, artists ages 16 and under are invited to take part in the Al Deddens Memorial Youth Painting Event. Children can try their hand at painting a wooden silhouette. All materials will be provided for the take-home art project.

A recent report aired by the German public broadcaster ARD provided a shocking exposure of the contempt shown by local authorities and church institutions in the city of Dortmund for impoverished workers from southeastern Europe.

The extreme poverty in the countries from which these workers have emigrated—above all, Bulgaria and Romania—has been deliberately exacerbated by the policies of the European Union (EU). This, in turn, has acted as a mechanism to drive living standards down sharply in countries such as France and Germany.

In the ARD report, television journalists Isabel Schayani and Esat Mogul accompanied Ercan, a Roma worker from Plovdiv in Bulgaria, who had spent a week fruitlessly looking for a low-paying job in the north of Dortmund, the city’s poorest area.

Immigrants from Bulgaria and Romania can legally live in Germany, since both countries joined the EU in 2007, but they are refused the right to work legally. Nonetheless, in 2011 200,000 such workers came to Germany to attempt to earn money mostly as day labourers.

Thousands have come to Dortmund. They stand on the street every morning and hope that a passing driver will offer them work.

Many have no permanent place to live and are forced into so-called “Ekelhäuser” (horror houses). These houses are either already occupied, meaning that the workers can be evicted at any time, or the latter must pay the owner for a single mattress on which to sleep each night. Washing facilities and kitchen appliances are often broken or completely inadequate for the number of people staying in the houses.

The overcrowding leads quickly to a build-up of rubbish and unhygienic conditions, as well as social tensions. The owners do not provide enough rubbish bins for the large number of occupants. In one house, where 19 people were living, there was no water and only one toilet.

Ercan worked for a firm for 22 years in Bulgaria as a packer, but like many Roma workers he lost his job.

Since coming to Dortmund a week earlier, Ercan had had no money to phone his wife. When he arrived in the German city, he found a place to sleep and was told by a Romanian, who said he was the head of the house, that he could stay there for four or five days. But when Ercan returned that evening he found the windows and doors boarded up. Having left his belongings inside, he found himself with only the clothes on his back.

Because of the freezing temperatures, Ercan needed to find somewhere to shower and warm up as soon as possible. The television reporters accompanied him to a charity run by the local evangelical church. He was turned away from there by a man with a note that read, “Bulgarians are not allowed to shower here”.

“They know this full well”, said the man. “but they always come back. And I have to show them this note again. Can they not read it? It is in their language. So, no showering!”

The reporters were told by someone from the social welfare charity for Dortmund and Lünen that they offered emergency help for those who required it. But in the provision of showers they were “very poorly equipped”.

People were simply sent on from there to the immigration centre, where they had a public clinic at 1pm. After a reporter asked if that meant Ercan could not shower, the following dialogue took place.

Man: He certainly can’t shower.

Reporter: Why not? Who is allowed to shower in there?

Man: Only Germans; no immigrants.

Ercan finds a place where he can shower, but only three times a week. He has similar problems with where to sleep. He tries to gain emergency accommodation from the welfare services for men, but he is also unwelcome there.

Man: Bulgarian or Romanian?

Ercan: I’m Bulgarian.

Man: Oh, no sleeping here. Only people from Dortmund. Only Germans.

Reporter: Why?

Man: This is only for Germans. Not for Bulgarians or Romanians. That is unfortunately how it works. We’re not allowed to do that.

Reporter: Is there a reason for that?

Man: That is unfortunately how it works. Social services and the city authorities have said so.

The only thing the man from welfare services can offer Ercan is that if he returns at 11:30 pm, “My colleague and I will decide if we will let you sleep here. But this time will only be an exception, because it is so cold. Ok? I can’t do anything more”.

Ercan spends the night in an Internet café, before travelling back to Bulgaria in the morning. The reporters give him the money for the trip.

This is not the first programme showing the predicament of Roma in Dortmund. Two years ago, a young Roma woman who sought to earn money for her family through prostitution was thrown out of a window by a brutal client and severely disabled. The television report used her fate as an opportunity to expose the grim conditions facing Roma in the city.

The report also noted the desperate conditions in the would-be immigrants’ countries of origin. Many of the Roma who arrive in Germany come from Stolipinovo, a district in Plovdiv. This part of the town is one of the largest Roma ghettos in the Balkans. Some 45,000 mainly Turkish-speaking Roma live there, often with no electricity or running water. Their living conditions have worsened catastrophically since the break-up of the Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe.

Bulgarians and Romanians are only allowed to stay in Germany for more than three months if they obtain a registration certificate, a rental agreement and health insurance. Most of those who arrive have no idea how to obtain such documents. Full freedom of movement and the legal right to work will only apply after 2014. In the meantime some try to sell old scrap vehicles to dealers. Others have to beg or are forced into criminal activity.

Many women manage to exist precariously on the streets. More than 700 in Dortmund reported prostitution as their occupation.

Prostitution was banned on the city’s streets in 2011 and the whole of Dortmund declared an exclusion zone. The measure was aimed at deterring further immigration. Dortmund city official Ingo Moldenhauer stated, “This should send a signal to Bulgaria, that one can no longer earn money here by working on the streets”.

Prostitution now takes place in illegal brothels. Social workers who were previously able to look after the women by providing contraceptives and organising courses in the German language now have no opportunity to do so.

The horrible living conditions in the “Ekelhäuser” also provide a welcome pretext for a witch-hunt in the media, reminiscent of Nazi propaganda.

For example, the Ruhr-Nachrichten, a local newspaper wrote in April 2011, “They [Roma people] steal, break in, and run wild in their surroundings. They confirm every well-known stereotype. Whoever cannot fend them off will perish, believes Hubert Scheuer, an old trade unionist”.

Instead of blaming the miserable economic conditions, government officials and gouging landlords, the media makes the Roma the convenient scapegoats for social problems.

Several “problem houses” were subsequently forcibly cleared by the security services. The Dortmund Municipal Housing Association (DOGEWO) bought seven buildings and has renovated 65 apartments. More is to come. Of course Roma immigrants will not be able to afford the rent in these houses.

Dortmund is not unique. In several large German cities the conditions are similar. In Duisburg, at the other end of the Ruhr region, around 6,000 Roma from Bulgaria and Romania live under the same inhuman conditions.

Greece: According to reports of journalists in Xanthi and the state tv station ET3, residents of the city have invited a group of neonazis to attack the community of Roma people. The excuse was more or less the same like other regions of the country. The residents talk about a number of small-robberies in their area which is increased lately. The residents together with the nazis set the half of the Roma people tents on fire. The local police didn’t show up during the pogrom incident: here.

Namibia recorded a number of transgressions concerning pangolins over the past year including confiscation by authorities and rescues of pangolin escapees found in urban environments. When considering the illegal activities occurring globally and whether local incidents are linked to larger trafficking networks or not, the authorities need to be on high alert.

This listing allows some trade of skins or scales under CITES (Convention for International Trade in Endangered Species) export and import licences, though nearly all the African countries where pangolins occur have national laws, regulations and policies that would deny permits for any and all trade.

The IUCN listing can create problems of control, because permits are much more readily and easily falsified when authentic copies are permissible.

The extent of illegal trafficking in wildlife species is realised by authorities worldwide. Enormous consignments, up to 23 tons, of whole frozen pangolins, skins and scales were uncovered in a number of incidents in Asia in recent years. These consignments of mostly Asian pangolin species including two listed as endangered under CITES, were en route to markets in China.

But of concern are recent consignments found with African pangolins or pangolin parts, though these could be from any of the four African species. The warnings signs are there, human populations are increasing, natural habitats are being reduced and if trade goes on unchecked the African pangolin species will no doubt land in the same endangered category as their Asian counterparts.

International concern for the health of wildlife populations has been dominated by the shocking events of rhino poaching, especially in southern Africa, including one known recent incident in Namibia.

Although overshadowed by the more conspicuous species, the plight of Asian pangolins and the extent of the illegal trade is critical. Africa needs to take heed and be sure that not only advocacy but information on policies concerning illegal hunting, trade and animal welfare are in place. Our concern and support must be given to port and border authorities who require the capacity to fully investigate all consignments leaving Namibia. The pangolin’s plight has been taken up by a Species Specialist Group, mandated under CITES, of which Namibia is a ratified member, but we need all citizens to actively engage in halting activities that threaten our heritage.

Advocacy needs to define strong deterrents for any pangolin use. Information needs to go to civil society especially farmers and to public officers including officers from the police and the ministries of Environment and Tourism, Agriculture Water and Forestry and Health and Social Services.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry because it is mandated to monitor developments in bush clearing for charcoal production and thus can facilitate the identification of persons who scour areas of Namibian land and must be finding all sorts of wildlife, including pangolins.

The Ministry of Heath and Social Services is mandated with the registration and perhaps to some extent control of traditional healers in Namibia, who use pangolin parts in unverified cures as well as simply for luck.

Africa and Namibia in particular have to deal with multicultural value systems. With the rapid increase in global trade and the influx of foreign nationals, a number of extra protective measures will need to be put in place in order to guarantee the safety of national standards, resources and heritage.

February 16 is International Pangolin Day, but protection is needed every day from illegal and unethical poaching and trade of these vulnerable animals.

To date Namibia has little information on both the distribution and the density of our pangolin population. A database on sightings of pangolin in Namibia would be useful to feed to a larger regional group of pangolin scientists and conservationists.

In austerity-struck Spain, street protesters are screaming for the government to resign over the latest corruption scandal. At the head of the conservative People’s Party (PP), Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has said he will speak publicly on the matter on Saturday. It concerns allegations that members benefited from a slush fund fed by private companies for years.

Spain’s main rival newspapers, the liberal El Pais and conservative El Mundo flushed the story into the open two weeks ago, revealing excerpts of almost two decades of handwritten accounts that it said were maintained by People’s Party treasurers.

The papers said the accounts showed more than a decade of payments to Rajoy of more than 25,000 euros per year. This has undermined his reputation for honesty.

Former PP treasurer Luis Barcenas stepped down in 2009 when judges began to investigate his possible involvement in alleged illegal payments from builders and other businesses which won government contracts.

A PP source said the allegations, if confirmed, raise serious ethical questions especially because politicians granted large numbers of development contracts during Spain’s building boom.

Fresh allegations have appeared in the Spanish media that leading Popular Party (PP) politicians, including Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and ministers in his government, have regularly received sums of money from secret slush funds provided by construction firms and other businesses.

The corruption scandal has further outraged a population already suffering mass unemployment, low wages and the destruction of social services by austerity measures imposed by the PP and its Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) predecessor. In little more than a week since the scandal hit the headlines, over a million people have demanded that Rajoy resign, and thousands have participated in protests outside the PP’s Madrid headquarters.

Last week, the editor-in-chief of the PSOE-aligned newspaper El País, Javier Moreno, handed over the documents known as “Bárcenas’ secret papers” to the Judicial Police in response to an order from the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office. The documents allegedly contain handwritten accounts by former PP treasurer Luis Bárcenas showing that more than €5 million [US$ 6.7 million] of the €7.5 million listed as payments to party leaders might be illegal.

The following day, Bárcenas appeared at the prosecutor’s office, where people waited outside calling him “thief” and “scoundrel”, and demanding to know “Where’s my envelope?” He asserted that the PP had not kept hidden accounts parallel to its official declarations to the tax authorities and that copies of ledgers published by El País were forgeries.

However, former PP deputy Jorge Trías told the prosecutor that Bárcenas had personally shown him unofficial records the latter kept of cash payments handed over in envelopes to party leaders and donations from companies that exceeded legal limits.

Rajoy, who has been accused of receiving the most backhanders, has only made two recent public appearances—one where no questions were allowed and another last week following the summit with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, during which only four questions were permitted. Not once has he mentioned Bárcenas.

In a desperate attempt to deflect criticism, the prime minister published his tax returns on Saturday showing an income of €200,000 from the PP. This did nothing to discourage questions about the alleged €25,000 paid to him in cash indicated in Bárcenas’s accounts, which also show that Rajoy’s salary in the PP grew 40 percent between 2005 and 2011.

In his latest declaration, Rajoy said, “We are not going to go over it again”. He defended Health Minister Ana Mato, who according to police reports, along with her husband Jesús Sepúlveda, the former mayor of Pozuelo, received gifts from the Gürtel network of corrupt businessmen. Sepúlveda continues to receive a salary from the PP as “an advisor who works at home”.

The “Gürtel” scandal erupted in 2008 and showed the rotten basis of Spain’s speculative housing boom. Businessman Francisco Correa and a number of close associates were accused of bribing politicians and officials in return for profitable contracts and building permits in the PP-ruled regions of Madrid, Valencia, Galicia and Castile-and-León.

Correa, who rose from obscurity to become a top PP “fixer”, was accused of bribing officials and politicians with cash and luxury goods. He was suspected of accumulating a secret fortune worth at least €50 million [US$ 67 million], but had not declared any income to the tax office since 1999.

The current scandal, not surprisingly, has sparked conflicts within the PP. A closed-door meeting Wednesday was reportedly dominated by “quarrels” and “confrontations”, according to party members present. Esperanza Aguirre, former PP president of the Madrid region and a highly influential figure on the Spanish right, said she would have forced the resignation of Mato and sacked Sepúlveda. She openly criticized PP Secretary General María Dolores de Cospedal for her handling of the Bárcenas scandal.

According to El País, “at least four people who witnessed Aguirre’s tirade said she ripped into De Cospedal for not being more energetic” in regard to allegations “that former PP treasurer Luis Bárcenas recorded on balance sheets the bonuses handed out to party leaders, including Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, [who] are now under investigation by anticorruption prosecutors”.

Aguirre has sided with those in the PP national committee who believe the party should sue Bárcenas.

After the conference Aguirre said, “I have separated from the party, one councillor, three deputies and several mayors before they were named as targets of investigation, and I never had anything to do with them since. We have confronted cases where it was later determined there had been corruption”.

The president of the PP regional government in Galicia, Alberto Núñez Feijoo, declared that Mato “has something to explain” and that he did not trust Bárcenas.

The corruption scandal has also divided the right-wing press, traditionally united in its defence of the PP. The Catholic newspaper La Razón and monarchist ABC have defended the PP and its leadership, accusing El País of forging the documents and claiming that the handwriting in the accounts does not belong to Bárcenas.

The other two main right-wing newspapers, the Catholic, pro-Francoist La Gaceta, and the populist El Mundo, have attacked the PP leadership. El Mundo has also leaked more information about the secret €22 million Bárcenas kept in Swiss bank accounts. Both La Gaceta and El Mundo have been lukewarm in their support of the Rajoy leadership, which removed the hardliners who supported former PP Prime Minister José Maria Aznar. They defend the right-wing faction headed by Aguirre.

The report, prepared following a year-long research effort conducted by leading Japan-based agencies commissioned by IFAW, provides the clearest picture ever of the failing whaling industry based largely on the government of Japan’s own data, never before presented in this way, inside or outside Japan.

Whaling economics

While the findings demonstrate that whaling is unprofitable and catering to an increasingly shrinking and ageing market, whale watching is, by contrast, a growth industry.

Patrick Ramage, Director of IFAW’s Global Whale Programme, said: “Here it is, for the first time, in black and white. IFAW’s report proves conclusively that Japan’s cruel whaling industry is dying in the water while Japanese taxpayers are being forced to foot the bill. This cruel, outmoded industry is in the red. Whaling is an economic loser.

“Now is the time for concerned citizens, NGOs and governments around the world to stop bludgeoning the good people of Japan and start helping them migrate from whaling to whale watching – a profitable solution that benefits whales, people and coastal communities in Japan and around the world.”

Japanese whale watching

Whale watching is worth around £1.3 billion annually. In Japan alone, whale watching generated around £14 million in 2008. There are currently around 30 whale watching operators working from a dozen locations around the Japanese coast.

Whale watching in Japan might become even more economically succesful, if the whaling would stop, and the whales would tend less to keep away from ships.

The country’s whaling fleet left port in December for Antarctica to train its harpoons on around 1,000 whales, in defiance of global opposition and several international laws. Japan hunts whales under the pretence of so-called science despite a worldwide ban on commercial whaling. IFAW believes Japan’s whaling produces sham science and is merely commercial whaling by another name.

IFAW opposes whaling because it is cruel and unnecessary; scientists agree there is simply no humane way to kill a whale. This is proved by footage of Japanese whaling which has shown whales taking more than half an hour to die. In addition, much of the meat is merely stockpiled or sold cheaply to schools and hospitals.

Fishermen in Japan have adopted a new way of killing dolphins in drive hunts – but the method is no more humane than the previous techniques, say vets and dolphin behaviour experts: here.

Japan relying on out-of-date data for hunts of small cetaceans, putting some populations of whales, dolphins and porpoises at risk, warns Environmental Investigation Agency: here.

A coalition of international animal welfare and conservation groups is calling on the Obama Administration to impose economic sanctions against Iceland after Icelandic whaling company Hvalur hf announced it will hunt and sell the meat of up to 184 endangered Fin whales this summer after a two year hiatus. Iceland is one of three countries that refuse to abide by international whaling laws banning the killing and trading of whales for commercial gain. The groups have sent a letter to the US Secretaries of State, Commerce and Interior calling for stronger measures by the Obama Administration: here.

The second anniversary of the uprising in Bahrain was marked with violence today, with reports that a teenager was shot dead during protests in the village of Al-Daih, west of the capital Manama: here.